Selah2020: Pause and Reflect

[This is one in a series of devotional reflections prepared for Horley Baptist Church during August 2021]

A king, a giant, a young man and a stone – the essential ingredients for a reflection based on the story of David and Goliath. In that event, the Israelite king Saul and his army were drawn up in battle lines against a Philistine force. The Philistines had a champion, a giant called Goliath who stood over ten feet tall and who was clad in bronze armour. He issued a challenge to the Israelites; to decide the battle with a one-to-one encounter, but Saul had no one who could respond to that challenge.

We too face challenges to our faith. Are we hesitant, fearful, unable to provide a response? As we know, a young man who trusted in God came on the scene and, after giving God the credit, he picked up a stone with which he turned the battle in the Israelites’ favour. Perhaps we need to be more diligent in our relationship with God so that when the challenges come we, like David, are prepared and have the confidence to face them head on.

This is not the only Biblical account with those four principal ingredients. Some 400 years later we find another king facing another giant. Nebuchadnezzar had a dream of a giant statue and it was certainly awesome.

The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay. While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. [Daniel 2 v32-34 NIVUK]

As Nebuchadnezzar was watching, a large stone fell on the statue and smashed it to tiny pieces, scattering the fragments. He was challenged as to what it all meant. His army of astrologers and magicians could not provide a response and, as with Saul’s army, their immediate prospects looked extremely grim.

“This is what I have firmly decided: if you do not tell me what my dream was and interpret it, I will have you cut into pieces and your houses turned into piles of rubble.” [Daniel 2 v 5 NIVUK]

As was the case with David and Goliath, a God-fearing young man played a pivotal role in saving the day. Daniel and his colleagues prayed for an answer and then he was able to explain the dream to the king, giving full credit for the revelation to God alone. The various materials and body parts represented successive empires, starting with the golden days of Nebuchadnezzar’s own time and progressively declining in status until the stone, a kingdom of God’s own making, swept all the others away.

In an example of how the Bible uses the language of its time to describe items and events that had not yet been envisaged the reference to a mixture of iron and clay could suggest reinforced concrete which, ironically, was first developed in the Roman era, the period that, some suggest, is represented by the feet of the statue.

You might not be the golden boy engaged in the high affairs of state or be running the risk of being chopped into pieces; it is more likely that your challenges concern mundane things like iron and clay. Daniel’s prayer partners faced their own challenge and their response “… the God we serve is able to deliver us …” can be our response too.

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